Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Democracy & Nature (2nd nomination)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus. See last comments below. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 14:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Democracy & Nature

I'm renominating this for delete. The previous nomination ended in no consensus. However, since then both the Inclusive Democracy page and the International Journal on Inclusive Democracy have been deleted on the 25th of December, 2005. The International Journal on Inclusive Democracy is that same publication as Democracy & Nature, when they changed editors they changed names. It seems the whole group of these three articles has been little more than vanity pushing of a relatively unknown ideology and this article is little more than a list of their issues and authors. It should be deleted per the discussion on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy and the first nomination, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Democracy & Nature. -- Jbamb 14:21, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Votes

  • Speedy keep notable. [1] [2] - FrancisTyers 14:23, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Sure it's a fringe group, but we have plenty of articles on fringe groups. As long as their views aren't given undue weight in other articles, I see no problem. -- Nikodemos (f.k.a. Mihnea) 22:57, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Definitely notable; if not for any other reason, then because Murray Bookchin was an active member of the advisory board for the first few years. Paulcardan 23:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Known sock puppet. -- Jbamb 16:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. The whole thing is not noteworthy.Cyberevil 16:48, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Notable! User:john sargis 12:41, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Another known sock puppet. -- Jbamb 16:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment, this last vote was by another person who's only contributions are to pages about Inclusive Democracy which has also been deleted. The only supporters seem to be people affiliated with this small and non-notable group. -- Jbamb 17:46, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, Harold Pinter + Noam Chomsky = notable. Kappa 18:37, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, this is notable. - ulayiti (talk) 02:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Delete per the other afds in regards to this nn group. karmafist 04:03, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep For the points made by Francis, Nikodemos and Kappa. Furthermore it seems that a dispute over content led to the article being listed for AfD. If this really isn't notable why wasn't it listed for deletion before the content dispute arose. RicDod 15:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't have a clue what this is about, but as Jbamb mentioned, the only supporters seem to be people affiliated with this group. It's not notable as is, probably violates WP:NOR, and is kicking up a lot of trouble. Strong delete per WP:IAR. Stifle 13:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete a journal of which 17 issues were published, and for which there is no reliable evidence of any widespread currency. Many of these journals are vehicles for vanity - there is no evidence on which to weigh whether this one is or not, because much of what is said about it is not verifiable from reliable sources. A journal can publish an article by anyone through syndication or by paying them - do we have any evidence of whether the illustrious contributors thhought this a credible journal? Whether they submitted to the journal or whether they were approached for a piece of editorial? What the peer-review process was? Taylor & Francis stopped printing it after five issues; is that a sign of a significant journal? Plus, the reaction of the "editorial board" is a clear violation of WP:OWN. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 16:49, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
    All the above ‘facts’ are FALSE indicating that it is through blatant lies that some try to have the journal deleted! First, the journal D&N (formerly Society and Nature) has published not 17 but 27 issues in its over 11 years history. http://www.democracynature.org/dn/index.htm. Second, the ‘illustrious contributors’ have submitted many articles, as anybody can easily find out by just checking the link above. Third, Taylor & Francis stopped publishing it after five VOLUMES , not issues, as Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] ‘discovered’ voting for delete, followed by SarekOfVulcan. Of course, we do not expect that the above real facts will make any of these ‘neutral’ users to change their mind! User:Narap43, 11:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I've checked out several articles by contributors I recognised and saw that their contributions were first published in this journal. It isn't hard to check this: just use google & google scholar. --- Charles Stewart 02:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Postscript - On the matter of why the publisher dropped them, it could be related to the resignation of Murray Bookchin & Janet Biehl from the editorial/advisory board [3]: long time lags between political and business effects are not uncommon in journal publishing. --- Charles Stewart 02:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Good detective work! The point however is that Bookchin and Biehl resigned in 1997, when D&N was still published by its original publisher (Aigis publications) whereas Taylor and Francis started publishing the journal …two years later (in full knowledge of these events since, before deciding to take over from Aigis, they went through all the previous issues of the journal) and continued publishing it for another five years (i.e. another five volumes of 3 isuues each) when, according to our Sherlock Holmes, discovered that Bookchin and Biehl resigned and they were so shocked by this event that they stopped publication of the journal. Ingenious idea indeed! User:Narap43, 11:50, 4 January 2006, (UTC)
Let me outline a hypothetical scenario to make my point about time lags clear: one, the publisher hears about the resignation even before it is published; two, while the publisher is very concerned about the resignation, they decide to take a gamble on the new advisory board still working out; three, two years later they drop the journal when it becomes clear that the journal had lost a lot of credibility. --- Charles Stewart 13:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
This is not a hypothetical scenario but pure science fiction! I repeat: T&F stopped publication not after two but after FIVE years of publication by them and SEVEN years after the Bookchin resignation. Second, can our Sherlock Holmes reply to the question why on earth a capitalist publisher like T&F was so shocked by the resignation of Murray Bookchin when NO OTHER MEMBER OF THE EB has resigned since then but, instead, the EB expanded signigficantly since then (the same happened to the number of contributors and circulation) ? And is the absence of Bookchin so signifibant when people like Sharon Beder, Steven Best, Carl Boggs, Pierre Bourdieu,Cornelius Castoriadis, Dan Chodorkoff (who is the Director of Social Ecology created by him and Boochin!) , Noam Chomsky, Paul Ekins, Andre Gunder Frank, Arran Gare, Douglas Kellner, Serge Latouche, Brian Morris, Harold Pinter, James Robertson, Ted Trainer-- among many others-- remained (or joined later) the EB? Only someone with no knowledge whatsoever of important writers in the Left could think so! User:Narap43, 4 January 2006, 18:06 (UTC)
Comment You mean "AB", right? --SarekOfVulcan 18:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - it's rather amusing that you reached this conclusion, as much of the edit warring prior to the first AfD was devoted to keeping this resignation letter link off the article.--SarekOfVulcan 08:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per Just zis Guy. As tempted as I am to leave this up to spite their demands to withdraw it, I didn't think it was notable last time around, and all the ranting I've seen since has not convinced me otherwise.--SarekOfVulcan 17:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - unlike what I could establish for the successor journal, "The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy", it is easy to see that this is a bona fide journal: ISSN number, paper printings by established publishers, original content by recognised scholars. Furthermore, many of the contributors are notable. --- Charles Stewart 02:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

    • Comment. Can any of the keepers tell me why this entry should be kept, but that the International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, the same journal, was deleted? The journal was published as Democracy & Nature, then when it switched publishers a few years ago it became the International Journal on Inclusive Democracy. Same editors, same writers, same journal, one entry gets deleted, the other is magically notable? Also, Paulcardan has skin in this game, his vote does not belong here according to policy. -- Jbamb 01:38, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Sure, the AfD for the other name came to the wrong conclusion. - FrancisTyers 01:41, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
also... why shouldn't Paulcardan vote? Which policy are you referring to? - FrancisTyers 01:44, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
It's the deletion etiquette policy. If you have skin in the game, your opinion is obviously biased. Apparently Paulcardan was once an editor of this journal. Would anyone take seriously a vote of someone who is the subject of a bio that is afd'd? Also, if you think it was wrong to delete the other article, feel free to recreate the article and try again but the consensus seemed clear then. -- Jbamb 17:36, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I wasn't aware that he was an editor of the Journal. - FrancisTyers 19:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
comment: I think that the vote of Paulcardan should not be counted because of a recent history of creating additional Wikipedia accounts for use in votes for page deletion (pages that are related to Democracy & Nature).
see: Sockpuppeting - DisposableAccount , Paulcardan, Llbb, Bbll
--JWSchmidt 01:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
comment. I want to remind to Jbamb that the discussion on the AfD for D&N (in which the vast majority of users voted to KEEP) showed that the journal was notable for many reasons(notable contributors—not just Bookchin!—notable editorial board—many citations and lots of abstracts published by the Alternative Press Index etc)--TheVel 16:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
A debate that included many sockpoppets and personal attacks it appears. -- Jbamb 17:36, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Come on! Jbamb, what about Nicodemos and FrancisTyers! What about Woohookitty(cat scratches), 23skidoo, Capitalistroadster, Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters, Tupsharru, Pete.Hurd, Alf (melmac), Jmabel, El_C and others who voted KEEP in the debate for Democracy&Nature? Are they supporters affiliated with our group?--TheVel 18:16, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. Jbamb's insistence on deleting the D&N entry, using in the process a series of falsified "facts" like the above one on the affiliations of supporters of KEEP, as well as the statement that the Inclusive Democracy entry was deleted because it referred to "a relatively unknown ideology" and not because of a minor copyvio (from the Inclusive Democracy external link!) is very interesting indeed. The fact that this uknown (to him) ideology reserves a long entry in the Routledge Encyclopedia of International Economy presumably means to him that this is not as reliable an encyclopedia as the Wikipedia one! I wonder whether this insistence has anything to do with his interests as described in his own WP page!18:40, Dec. 31, 2005.
    • Comment: We aren't talking about those pages, we are talking about this one. Inclusive Democracy has been deleted, the International Journal on Inclusive Democracy has been deleted. There appears to be consesus on deleting The International Network on Inclusive Democracy. Everything associated with this is getting deleted. If all you have to defend this is assume I'm acting with bad faith, I think that says something about the inherent worth of these articles. I'm a latecomer into these debates, and I'm saying nothing about a dozen other people have already said. Those articles are getting deleted because of the non-noteworthiness of this theory. This page is no different. -- Jbamb 19:04, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. Jbamb, it would have been much more honest not to pretend that you are a ‘neutral’ administrator on a deeply political topic belonging to the antisystemic Left when all your interests (and contributions) are on right wing-politics. The noteworthiness of this theory fortunately is not going to be judged by right-wingers who have the power, as administrators, to decide what should be and what should not be on encyclopaedias. At least, bourgeois encyclopaedias, like the one I mentioned above, (as well as the dozens of references to Inclusive Democracy you may find in books, journals --even in Google hits) have experts on the field who, even if they do not agree with the politics of what they assess, try to be as neutral as they can. Coming now to the new distorted ‘facts’ you presented above: I repeat, as it seems one has to repeat things to you so that you can assimilate them, that the Inclusive Democracy entry was deleted for a minor copyvio –nothing to do with non-noteworthiness. The International Journal on Inclusive Democracy was deleted after an obvious socketpuppet (currently under investigation) made an AfD, which is now recognised as an error by several administrators in their own WP pages. It is worthnoting that the decision to delete was taken by just two (2) votes in favor of delete, after all other votes to keep were discounted, on the dubious grounds that they were made by relatively new users (even if they were clearly more knowledgeable on the topic than the two administrators, who, like you, had no idea about it). A similar type of “consensus” is being attempted now with respect to the International Network on Inclusive Democracy. It is actions like yours that discredit Wikpedia and today the world press increasingly disputes the reliability of information it provides!19:47, Dec.31, 2005
      • User has been warned for repeated personal attacks. A difference of opinion a vast right wing conspiracy does not make. -- Jbamb 22:30, 31 December 2005 (UTC
  • Comment It's not a matter of a difference of opinion, but of the impossibility of 'neutrality' of administrators. -- john sargis 18:32, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. You have skin in this game, I do not. All of your other stuff has been deleted, I played no part in that. Move on. -- Jbamb 23:48, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment If you did your homework you would have read that the deletions boiled down to gangsterism by non-neutral administrators. And it is the same with this article. You coming in now is just jumping on the delete bandwagon, because you are carrying the same argument. john sargis 19:26, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Check out WP:FAITH and WP:NPA. I'm getting real tired of the supporters of these articles engaging in a pattern of attack and intimidation. I'm about ready to move to get you all banned. In every AfD the policy has been followed you've been given a chance, and all you do is flame. If all you can muster in support of this article is some vast right wing conspiracy that's out to get you, then we should delete the article and be done with it because Inclusive Democracy must be nothing more than a kook patrol for conspiracy theorists wearing tin-foil hats. -- Jbamb 01:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment There has been no good faith practiced by 90% of the administrators. The originator of the deletes was discredited to be a sockpuppet and was to be banned. He never was and allowed to continue his attacks using other sockpuppets. Consequently, the 'neutral' administrators sided with him and the gangsterism commenced. Personal attacks is a matter of opinion. I can say that your personal attack against us is with your above comment depicting us as "nothing more than a kook patrol." You are not learning the history, so therefore you are repeating it. You are acting like a dictator with, "I'm about ready to move to get you all banned." We are doing all we can to rectify the situation considering we are new to wiki with its voluminous set of rules. john sargis 20:30, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm not acting like a dictator, I'm insisting you follow the rules on personal attacks. I've cited them repeatedly. -- Jbamb 17:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Are you saying that your comment that we are "nothing more than a kook patrol" is not a personal attack? Here is an observation: you are a hypocrite, because you do not follow the rules you make. Therefore, you are superfluous. You don't get it. Are you and only you going to ban us. Then do it. You follow the rules, when it is convenient for you. Everyone else is discounted. john sargis 19:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment If there is this much discussion it should probably be going on in the Talk page of the article. - FrancisTyers 14:39, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I voted delete last time and none of my concerns then were satisfactorily addressed. As to the other articles, why would we need two articles on the same subject anyway? Actually I'm not even sure about one. The statement at the top of this page is a claer violation of WP:OWN, of course. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 21:58, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Deletion is not the solution to duplicate articles. Kappa 00:42, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Because your concerns were not satisfied, when you voted to delete, does it mean that the process or the processors are not to your liking? Democracy is a subject. You mean there cannot be more than one article on it? That is a totalitarian statement if I ever heard one. Your rules are a hodgepodge all over the place and very confusing, the better to keep newcomers off balance and discounted!

john sargis 20:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF D&N AND IJID

removed 1. We, the members of the Editorial Board of Democracy & Nature (D&N) and its present successor The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy (IJID) have, over the last few days, witnessed a concerted attack against the journal by an alliance of sockpuppets (who have been created by a disgruntled ex-member of the journal with a vendetta against us) and some administrators who are either apolitical (not in the sense of party politics but in the sense of a fundamental lack of understanding of politics in the broader sense) or who do not hide their hostility towards the Inclusive Democracy political agenda. This ‘unholy’ alliance has attempted to delete all Inclusive Democracy entries in Wikipedia and in some cases it has already succeeded in doing this.

2. The reasons for which Wikipedia have attempted to substantiate their AfDs range from silly WP copyright violations (from our own webpages!-- which, if applied to all WP entries, would lead to most of them being eclipsed) to arbitrary ‘assessments’ of the notability and significance of our entries. Such ‘assessments’ are given either by administrators who do not have any expertise on the topics they are assessing, or by others following their own political agenda which is at the opposite end of the political spectrum to the Inclusive Democracy project.

3. We find it humiliating, to say the least, to be subjected to this pseudo-democratic process which defames not only our journals, which have been honoured to have had as contributors and members of their Editorial Boards well-known writers such as Steven Best, Murray Bookchin, Pierre Bourdieu, Cornelius Castoriadis, Noam Chomsky, Takis Fotopoulos, Andre Gunder Frank, Serge Latouche, Harold Pinter-- and many other equally important writers who do not have similar WP entries—but also our subscribers who have, in the past, included such notable institutions as Michigan State University, University of Maryland, University of Wisconsin, London School of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Stanford University, Simon Fraser University, Hamburg Library, University of New South Wales, University of Canterbury, Kent; Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal; Harvard College Library,Iinternational Institute of Social History, Amsterdam; Formazione ii Biblioteca, Palermo; Bath University and many others. Furthermore, we find this process equally humiliating to the authors of hundreds of references and citations to D&N and IJID in books, journals, magazines, and electronic media.

4. Finally, we find appalling the fact that, through Wikipedia’s so-called assessment process, self-anointed administrators with no guarantee at all of any expertise in the fields they assess use their wide-ranging powers to decide which pieces of knowledge and information are appropriate enough to be included in Wikipedia. These powers include discounting the votes of registered users who are not long-established--even if their expertise is much more relevant to the topics assessed than that of the administrators, as the irrelevant comments of these administrators frequently show. These built-in fatal errors in assessment—only some of which have been mentioned--could go a long way in explaining the growing literature in the world press on the low standard of knowledge and information provided by Wikipedia.

5. When we created the WP Inclusive Democracy entries, we were functioning as bona fide users thinking that we were helping the development of a free and supposedly democratic encyclopaedia that could function as an alternative source of information to the established encyclopaedias. We were utterly disappointed when we discovered the irresponsible and completely unreliable way in which knowledge on important matters is supposedly created by this supposedly alternative encyclopaedia, which clearly will never reach the standards of the established encyclopaedias because of the fatal structural flaws mentioned. Therefore, the sooner it is disqualified as an authoritative source of knowledge, the better.

6. In light of the above we have decided the following:

a) to withdraw with immediate effect ALL the Inclusive Democracy entries from Wikipedia, including those that have been challenged only on account of trivial Wikipedia copyright violations, as well as those like the entry on the founder of Inclusive Democracy, Takis Fotopoulos, which has not been challenged by anyone during this whole process. b) to demand the banning of any new entry on the following topics: Inclusive Democracy, Democracy & Nature, The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, The International Network for Inclusive Democracy and Takis Fotopoulos. We reserve all our legal rights in case any future entries on these topics are created in Wikipedia without our explicit and written permission. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.79.62.52 (talk • contribs) Revision as of 18:43, 1 January 2006

The Editorial Committee of The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy 18:00 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Note: 81.79.62.52 is an IP owned by Energis UK and is assigned to their DSL section. I find it hard to believe that this request is actually attributable to the Editorial Committee of The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy. - FrancisTyers 19:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
It's probably the same person as John sargis (talk · contribs), who originally created this and all related articles, and has now been indiscriminately pasting the same rant on all those articles. I see no reason to suspect the authenticity of the rant, but it should have no effect on the deletion process either. - ulayiti (talk) 02:33, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
ulayiti, you really have it in for me, since I briefly analyzed you. You are transferring lots of unconscious energy on me, but I refuse to play that whom (you fill in the blank)you are transferring that energy towards. john sargis 22:45, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
I just said that I believe you and voted to keep this article. How's that 'having it in for you'? - ulayiti (talk) 04:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Francis et.al. you have a difficult time beleving everything we write, so it's not difficult to predict that you don't believe. Francis are you a wagering person? If the request is not from the EC of the IJID I will withdraw from all discussions and you will not hear from me again, and you are free to delete all pages. If, however, the request is indeed from the EC of the IJID then all pages have to be restored and protected. How confident are you in your beliefs? Go for it dude! john sargis 23:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't bet. I advise you read my comments more carefully, I think you will find that you are mistaken in assuming I want this page deleted. - FrancisTyers 04:01, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
In life one must take risks or else one only clamors in the "gas chamber of life", in the illusion of freedom. How else to seek out openings in your life-world or to disrupt the taken-for-granted? john sargis 4:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Whether or not this is actually originating from the editorial board aside, the demands made in point 6 are not anything that we can comply with. Since all the contributions were originally licensed under the GFDL, which is a perpetual license, they cannot be withdrawn or terminated. Nor do they have the right to require permission before any creation of further articles. Stifle 13:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ADDENDUM

Since yesterday’s announcement some of the main points we made in it have already been confirmed! Thanks to the technical work of some administrators who showed that they function without any political agendas against us but instead attempted to find out the truth, Paul Cardan (the disgruntled ex-member of the journal with a vendetta against us who was the main cause of the first AfD against Democracy & Nature through his repeated vandalising attacks against it) and User:DisposableAccount (who proposed the deletion of the successor journal to D&N and with the support of two (2) administrators managed to have it deleted), Llbb and Bbll (who persuaded other administrators to keep the page deleted) are all the same editor! [4] Meanwhile, other administrators still doubt whether the present announcement is a genuine Editorial Board announcement. Here is the proof: http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/newsletter/Wikipedia.htm

The Editorial Committee of The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy 10:30 (UTC) January 2, 2006

User:Narap43

Please be aware that I for one do not give a flying fuck whether this is an "official" editorial board announcement or not. Nor do I care whether you choose to take every "delete" vote as a personal insult. I do care that you appear to believe that you own the content relating to your journal, since that is absolutely not permitted by Wikipedia policy (see: WP:OWN. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 16:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment from an outsider. Before anyone pounces on me, I'm just one of the guys that reviews the AfD nominations and closes them when appropriate. The discussion above, if it can be called a discussion, is out of place. Parts of it should be conducted in the article's talk page, other parts in personal talk pages. The editorial board announcement is so terribly out of place that I should remove it outright. I'm trying to find a way not to close this as "no consensus" but it's very hard. As I see it, this is not a problem of notability but of verifiability and control of content (please correct me if I'm wrong). If a journal is published over years and receives contributions from notable people, then it's notable. But if the only way to verify anything about it is by consulting the editors, and moreover, if the editors want to have control of the Wikipedia coverage of the journal and the concepts it presents, then we have a serious problem. I can only suggest that everybody calms down and think of a suitable compromise. If you can't compromise, then this article will have to go. Legal threats, editorial pronouncements, and accusations of any kind not backed up by policy and immediately accessible evidence will not be tolerated. Just for the record, Wikipedia is not a democracy. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 15:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment

I wonder how Pablo D. Flores derived his ‘wise’ conclusion that the problem is one of verifiability and control. All that the Editorial Board stressed was something that for everybody else (outside Wikipedia!) is self-evident: i.e., primarily, the authentic source of information about the history of the journal, as I suppose the authentic source of information on an article on the history of the New York Times, is its editors and not any user, even if he worked for the journal for a couple of years. Also, the primary source of information on Inclusive Democracy could only be its founder and his associates, as similarly the primary source of information on social ecology could only be its founder and his associates. This does not mean that editing to add information, provided it is reliable, should not be allowed. If that were the case, the editors would not have created this WP entry in the first instance. But, it is one thing to edit in order to add reliable information and quite another to distort the FACTUAL information given by the editors themselves, or to add malicious misinformation etc, as it happened in this case. And the WP rules about negotiation, arbitration, etc. are completely irrelevant. Why the Editors of NYT will ‘negotiate’ with a malicious editor on an encyclopedia entry on their own newspaper? In any other encyclopedia such problems are solved through expertise and specialized knowledge on editing any entry. This does not of course secure ‘objectivity’, but at least rules out malicious and distorted editing. In Wikipedia even this seems impossible since it establishes ‘equal right’ of any user, without distinguishing between editors who have more qualifications to give an accurate description, particularly on factual matters, and every other user. As an astute user stresses on the matter: “The danger in wikipedia is that secondary readers of secondary sources can become primary editors! …Truth lies in the eye of the beholder! Since that article and many others after, my faith in wikipedia as a reliable source with universal value has been questioned, and I can't trust the "anyone can edit" principle anymore” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Chazz88#enlighten_me_about_objectivity_in_wikipedia_.28and_thks_for_welcoming.29 john sargis 19:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I tried asking them to move the discussion to the talk page of the article 3 days ago :( - FrancisTyers 16:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • OK, I think I got the idea now. I vote for delete as violation of WP:NOR and WP:V; an extra reason would be the apparently unsolvable issue of WP:OWN. I must say I considered closing this as "no consensus", but I believe that would have been unfair. All articles should be subject to the same standards. If this nomination fails, I suggest further discussion is conducted at the article's talk page before re-nominating it. However, if this nomination is disrupted again by personal attacks, rants about Wikipedia's ideology, or any of the other ways in which it has been disrupted above already, I will block the offending user(s), protect the page to avoid an edit war, and re-nominate it myself. I refuse to believe this might be necessary. We're all adults (I think). --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 11:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Pablo D. Flores makes it clear that no criticism of Wikpedia’s ideology is allowed and he threatens blocking any offender. And yet he goes on to accuse us that, what we requested, amounts to the violation of the WP rule that articles should not be subject to the same standards (a rule that presumably does not apply to the administrators’ comments!) In fact, however, we never asked anything of the sort. We simply argued that for Wikipedia to survive, as criticisms about the reliability of the information it provides grow in the world press, it should change its own standards: i.e. a way has to be found so that primary editors’ views are not offset by those of secondary or tertiary –even malicious--editors. This is a bona fide advice. Since you have the power at your hands you can of course ban me but the future will show who is right and who was all along wrong! john sargis 9:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm closing this as "no consensus". The AfD process has been turned into a farce. I urge editors who voted above to come back to AfD, since I'm going to re-nominate this. I have blocked john sargis for 24 hours for disruption and seeming inability or unwillingness to understand what WP policies are about. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 14:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.